How to View Graduate Application Documents

The old Docushare system that formerly housed graduate application documents has been retired. Accessing documents of incoming MS Chemistry graduate applications is readily available to graduate faculty members within the department via a 2-step process.  If you are not sure that you have graduate faculty status, click here to check.

(1) Log into your Pipeline account.  On the homepage, scroll down to see "AppReview" underneath the "Admissions Application" section, circled in red in the screen shot below (click to enlarge;click "x" on upper-right hand corner to close).

This will take you to a screen showing a listing of applicants that have been routed for a recent admissions cycle.  Note that as soon as the MS admissions committee makes a decision to admit/deny you will lose the ability to view applicant files via AppReview, i.e., they will no longer display and will have to be viewed via Radius.

(2) In the listing of students displayed, click on the applicant name to reveal all documentation.  Various documents are available via html that links to pdfs (click to enlarge;click "x" on upper-right hand corner to close).

Tracking your progress with 'Degree Works'

Are you having trouble keeping track of your MS degree requirements as you progress through the program?  As of this year, all degree requirements, including listing of missing coursework, thesis defense requirements, etc. are grouped together inside Degree Works, which you may access via MTSU Pipeline account.  

1. Accessing Degree Works
On the MTSU homepage,  click on 'Pipeline' and log into your FSA using your email and password.  On the panel on the left-hand side click on "Registration & Student Records", circled in red (click image to enlarge;click on "x" in upper right corner to exit).

Another screen will display.  Scroll down.  On the right hand panel, click on "Degree Works", circled in red. Remember to adjust your web browser to permit pop-ups to display.  You may set the restrictions to allow pop ups for all MTSU web applets to show.  The screen that follows will show your progress (click to enlarge;click on upper right hand "x" to exit).

2. Display of Unmet Conditions

In this particular example, the student has met 73% of the program requirements.  Note that the status bar will not show 100% until after (s)he has graduated from MTSU.  There is a listing of completed requirements (checked, green boxes), not complete requirements (unchecked, red boxes), in-progress requirements, and any actions needed in which the student needs to see the advisor.  This student has not yet defended his/her MS thesis (click to enlarge;click on upper right hand "x" to exit).

3. Changing Elective Coursework

A most common mid-course alterating as you are pursuing the MS degree is changing your electives.  Be sure that the total Chemistry elective hours are between 5 and 7 credit hours to stay in financial compliance.  The listing of elective courses can be seen below (click to enlarge;click on upper right hand "x" to exit).

Changing electives for your course must to done using Dynamic Forms (explained in another blog), which eventually must be done prior to getting your degree.

Degree Plans & Revisions with Dynamic Forms

This is an update to the previous blog on creating and revising your degree plan.  All incoming accepted students are now required to submit a degree plan before the start of the first semester at MTSU, even if you don't know who your major MS research advisor is with whom you will complete your independent MS thesis.

Managing your degree plan and navigating within it will all be accomplished using Dynamic Forms which you will generate via your Pipeline account.  The following forms (described more fully below) will need to be generated, approved by your major thesis advisor and then by the MS Chemistry program coordinator (Dr. Charles Chusuei).  If you don't know who your major thesis advisor will be select the MS coordinator for now; this can be changed later in the semester.

Note that you should select a major research professor with whom you will complete your independent research.  You may use the forms in the appendices in the MS Chemistry Handbook (pages 10-11) as worksheets for the Dynamic Forms.  To help us help you track your progress to graduation, be sure to submit your forms in the appendices of the handbook at the recommended semesters to the MS Coordinator.

Click here to access the various Dynamic Forms.  All the needed forms will be located under the "Forms for Current Graduate Students" tab.  

1. Advising Form
The advising form is used to create your degree plan. Before completing this form, you should contact your major research advisor (or MS coordinator) for guidance on elective credit classes, which total between 5-7 credit hours.  Fill out your portion of the form for approval by your major research advisor.  Be sure to correct fill out his/her name and email address along with your information.  Ultimately, note that your "academic advisor" is your "major research advisor,"  the one who will oversee your MS thesis work (click to enlarge;click on upper right hand "x" to exit).

Click "submit" for approval.  After your advisor and coordinator approves, you will be able to register for classes for the first time.

2. Revision Form
If during the course of your study, you need to change your academic advisor (major research professor), you may do so by accessing the revision from under "Revision Form" within the "Forms for Current Graduate Students" tab.  Note that in our MS program, there is no Comprehensive Exam (click to enlarge;click on upper right hand "x" to exit). 

In addition, you may also change in electives using the form. After consulting with your advisor, enter in the reason for the change.  Note that you must take a minimum of 8 credit hours of Thesis Research (CHEM 6640) and at most 19 credit hours.  For reasons mentioned in the earlier version of this blog, exact matching of the credit hours you take with those in your degree plan must exactly match to avoid issues with receipt of financial aid (click to enlarge;click on upper right hand "x" to exit).  
After completing the revision form, click on "submit" for approval from your academic advisor, and MS program coordinator.

3. Intent to Graduate 
All students are required to submit an Intent to Graduate Form during the first two weeks of the semester they plan to graduate. Submitting this form initiates the degree checkout process, including verification of completion of degree requirements.  If the form is submitted after the deadline, the degree may still be conferred, but students may be unable to participate in commencement ceremonies or be published in the commencement program. 

4. Request to Withdraw Intent to Graduate
If you have filed an Intent to Graduate but later realize you will not actually be graduating, you must submit this form to alert the College of Graduate Studies.  Since Intents are due early in the semester, some students realize after filing their Intent that they will not meet the requirements for degree conferral.  If you have submitted an Intent, but do not actually graduate, you will not be able to register for classes again until you file this form.  Once you complete all requirements and are ready to graduate in a future semester, you will need to submit your Intent to Graduate again.

5. Advisory Committee Form
If you are writing a thesis or dissertation, you must submit an Advisory Committee Form to formally establish your committee and chair.  This should be done in the beginning stages of the writing process, before your proposal.  Please see the Thesis and Dissertation website for more information.  See page 10 of the MS Chemistry Handbook for a worksheet for this exercise.

6. Change in Advisory Committee Form
If you have established an Advisory Committee for writing your thesis or dissertation, and you need to make changes to your committee members, you will need to submit this form.  You may use this form to add or subtract members from your committee or to designate a different chair.

Creating and Revising Your MS Degree Plan

In an article by Scott Travis of the South Florida SunSentinel on January 12th, 2018, eight colleges had to pay back Federal aid dollars (as much as $5.6M for one school) to the US federal government following an external review finding that students received aid. This relatively recent lesson underscores the importance of properly filing your MS degree plan to ensure the health of your financial aid as well as navigate through the program for a timely completion. 

Beginning in Spring 2019, a new procedure will come into effect in filling out the MS degree plan that satisfies both financial aid and "Coursework toward Program of Study" (CPoS) requirements at MTSU. To maximize flexibility of degree plans to be filed, our program offers an 8-19 hour requirement of variable credits for CHEM 6640 "Thesis Research", and a required 5-7 hour variable credit of Chemistry electives. For CPoS and financial aid requirements to be fulfilled, the credit hours should be synchronized with those of the actual courses completed. Failure to do so has hampered past MS students.

New operational procedure for filling out the degree plan to sure fulfillment of both CPoS and financial aid requirements:
The first task you need to do is to fill out hte MS degree plan. [See blog on "Top 11 Things to Know and Do for a Great Start!" and hotlink for the blank degree plan form in point #1 for further details.]  You will fill eventually fill out two versions of your MS degree plan.  Follow these 3 steps.

Step 1: After you have selected your major MS thesis advisor, consult with him/her to determine what appropriate elective courses would be most helpful for your independent research.  These courses constitute the graduate Chemistry elective hours. The combination of these courses will be either 5, 6 or 7 credit hours. If your coursework deviates from the original plan, a revision to the degree plan form must be filed. If you take courses taken outside the degree plan will not be covered  by financial aid. There are a variety of approved graduate electives in the MS program.  Most of our offered courses have a 3-hour credit.  Some courses have 2-hour (e.g., CHEM 6530 "Biochemical Techniques") and 4-hour credits (e.g., BIOL 6380 'Experimental Immunology', BIOL 6290 'Advanced Scanning Electron Microscopy,' etc.). The variable 5-to-7 credit hour range would encompass a combination of two 3-credit hours classes, a combination of 2-credit hour and 3-credit hour courses, or a combination of a 4-credit and 3-credit hour courses.

Step 2: Sign up for 19 credit hours of CHEM 6640 research in your initial plan.  Your final degree plan may likely differ. The 19 credit hours will take into account unexpected circumstances that you will result in more time spent than originally anticipated due to the unpredictable nature of independent research. For example, an important piece of equipment breaking down requiring an extended repair time may hamper the timely completion of your thesis work.  The 19 credit hours also factors in a potential 7th semester graduate teaching assistantship extension, if needed (click here for details).

Step 3: Close to the end of finishing your degree, fill out a Revision to Degree Plan (click here to access form). In this form, you may delete superfluous CHEM 6640 hours or make changes to elective courses in the event that the original target course(s) could not be offered, or that a new direction in your research is needed.

Additional considerations:
Consult with your major thesis advisor when planning your CHEM 6640 credit hours. There is no "cookie cut" way to register for these hours since by nature, independent research is highly variable. The absolute minimum hours acceptable to the graduate school to maintain the standard teaching assistantship is 6 credit hours for the fall semester, 6 credit hours during the spring semester and 1 credit hour for summer. 

You are permitted to sign up for more hours than needed. However, you should take heed that you do not go over the maximum number of allowed CHEM 6640 hours. One suggestion is to sign up for the absolute minimum hours per semester until you reach your terminal semester, and only then, load up on your remaining research hours (again, consult with your major research advisor for your particular case). Going over the cumulative 19 credit hour limit would cause problems with financial aid.

How to Extend a Master's Thesis Embargo

A former MS research student of mine found himself in the predicament of wanting to publish his MS thesis work, but were unable to because their material was posted on the web via ProQuest.  He had inadvertently lost track of the time needed for embargoing their MS theses to allow for publication in peer-reviewed journals. 

It was discovered that his hard-earned data and analysis was posted without password protection, and freely available to all on the web by third parties, e.g., 'Semantic Scholar'.  This is one repository that adds material from ProQuest with the use of Artificially Intelligent program to capture such material for archival.

Fortunately, there is a way to undo some of this premature posting.  What do you do toextend the embargo so you can publish/patent your thesis research?

Step 1: First, contact ProQuest to extend your embargo.  Note that it is possible to request an indefinite embargo.  You should contact them again when you are ready for ProQuest to disseminate your thesis.

Step 2: Contact 'Semantic Scholar' using their "Feedback" box found using the 'Contact' button on the upper right-hand corner of their webpage to send a message.  Include your email address in the message box to ensure you get a response.  You might write something like...

Dear Semantic Scholar:

I am writing to you regarding my posted master’s thesis on your web site:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/...(remainder of hotlink)

It is on your site as a result of its release from ProQuest, which I have now embargoed for purposes of potential future patent of the technology contained in the work therein. Since public display of this thesis would hamper my efforts for patenting, I request that you remove it from display on your web site.

Sincerely yours,

My student made this request when he discovered a premature posting of his thesis.  Within the next day or so, he received the following response:

We have removed this paper from our site per your request; the PDF itself should disappear within one week. Please be aware though that it can take a bit longer (up to a few weeks) for the change to be reflected on all parts of our system and on other sites like Google Scholar.

We appreciate your patience.

Semantic Scholar Team

www.semanticscholar.org

This entire exchange took place within 48-to-72 hours.  After this email interaction, my student was finally able to move forward with completing and preparing the manuscript for peer-reviewed publication.

Need a 7th Semester Graduate Teaching Assistantship (GTA) Extension?

You must apply for it.  It is not automatically given.

The MS committee examines student requests on a case-by-case basis, and will make a recommendation to the Associate Dean of the MTSU Graduate Studies Office, who will then makes the final decision on granting the extension.  ALL graduate teaching assistant requests will require the following to be provided to the MS Coordinator, Dr. Charles Chusuei (preferably in pdf format):

1) A letter of support from the major research professor detailing reasons why a 7th semester GTA is needed for completion of the thesis work.

2) A rough draft (OK if it is incomplete--it can be a bare bones version) of the student’s MS thesis, that may include introduction and background of the project and available data pertinent to the thesis and preliminary data up to that point.

3) A copy of all teaching evaluations of classes taught up to that point.  This evaluation may be accessed through your MTSU Pipeline account. 
Send these materials to your major research professor, who will then forward them [along with any other information (s)he feels is appropriate] to the MS Coordinator.

Be sure to submit your request with ample time before GTA assignments can be made to the new incoming class of MS students of the following semester to allow the MS committee to make an evaluation. 

Note: Graduate students supported entirely by research assistantships and/or other means (i.e., funding independent of the Graduate Studies) are not asked for these materials in order to continue work beyond the 6th semester. (In these cases, GTA support is in no way involved.)

The purpose of requesting the teaching evaluation is to ensure that the student can continue to effectively function as a GTA.  The purpose of endorsement by the major professor is to ensure that (s)he is in agreement with the student’s extension request as well as provide background to the specifics of the student’s case.  The purpose of requesting the rough draft is two-fold: 
i) To show satisfactory progress towards completing the MS degree, given the circumstances explained by the major professor.
ii) To assist the major professor in the event that either the MS committee does not recommend extension or the MS committee’s positive recommendation is negated by Graduate Studies.  A working MS thesis draft would enable a rapid completion of the degree should the GTA extension request be denied.

3 Pitfalls to Avoid in Publishing Your Thesis Research (including notes on ProQuest)

A good way to establish your scientific authority is to publish your research in respected, peer-reviewed journals.  This will open career doors as a practicing scientist.  At this current stage of your career, you will lean on the advice and mentoring of your major research professor.  As you become more adept at thinking, carrying out experiments, and writing, you will need less and less oversight, and eventually be able to publish independently.

A general rule of thumb is: if it is not original, it is not publishable.  For example, a policy from the American Chemical Society, the largest publisher in the field of Chemistry/Biochemistry states:

"The [ACS journal title] considers for publication only original work that has not been previously published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. When submitting a manuscript, an author should inform the editor of any prior dissemination of the content in print or electronic format. This includes electronic posting of conference presentations, posters, and preprints on institutional repositories and other web sites. Any content that has been made publicly available, either in print or electronic format, and that contains a significant amount of new information, if made part of a submitted manuscript, may jeopardize the originality of the submission and may preclude consideration for publication."

In other words, premature release of your research data may jeopardize its suitability for publication in respected, peer-reviewed journals. There is a difference between having your results published in an ACS journal versus having them reported in a supermarket tabloid.  To safeguard the quality of the peer-review process, the following precautions should be taken.

1) Do not post good data on social media. New researchers are often excited when they get intriguing results and hence want to disseminate it.  However, posting data on social media in itself may be considered "already published".

2) When presenting work at a scientific conference, do not make copies of original, unpublished research materials and hand them out to your audience. This is especially true when the experiments are easy to duplicate.  Unless you are presenting at a Gordon Research Conference (in which there is a signed agreement under penalty of prosecution), there is nothing to stop another researcher from running back to his/her lab, reproducing your results and sending it off to a journal before you have a chance to complete your work. A few years ago, I had a master's student who did this very thing as potential employers (as well as peers) visited him at an informal poster session.  It is ok to distribute research articles that you have already published for job search/networking purposes.  

3)  Don't forget to request an embargo to protect your intellectual property.  MTSU requires that all Master of Science theses to be archived on ProQuest to complete the degree. An important reminder when archiving thesis on ProQuest:  if the instructions are not exactly followed, you may find that the independent research that you have worked very hard for may have been disseminated on the world wide web. This could potentially preclude any of your efforts to publish in standard peer-reviewed articles and submission of patents.  

It would be wise to search the web yourself to ensure that your work is not prematurely "published" on the web.  One incident that occurred during the 2014-2015 academic year the week before Spring Break was that every single MS thesis from the MTSU Chemistry department was released on the web. Fortunately, this technical glitch was caught and corrected before too much damage was done.  To prevent a thesis from being immediately disseminated (which would preclude publication, patent applications, etc.), the student must request an embargo.  It is not automatically given.

Link to ProQuest: www.etdadmin.com.

The standard options allow graduate students to select up to 2 years wide dissemination of their thesis/dissertation (see image below).  

There is an option to do an indefinite embargo by leaving the end date space blank.  However, this option is hidden from view to the student. The student must ask the ProQuest technical support to include this feature to take advantage of it (see hotlink above).

Only students are able to change their embargo options.  To do so, they must contact the ProQuest Publishing Group. Their phone number is 1-800-521-0600  ext. 77020, and they are open from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Eastern. Their email address is disspub (at) proquest (dot) com. 

If a student is concerned about their document's inclusion in the JEWL Scholar database as well (s)he can change their options in ProQuest, which will carry over to JEWL Scholar.  And then, the student can contact the library's Dean, Dr. Bonnie.Allen (at) mtsu (dot) edu to request the removal of their document.